At this point, it’s pretty much common knowledge that exercising and staying active is important to maintaining your physical and mental health, especially if you have an office job that keeps you glued to your computer screen — and a chair — all day. But two new studies published in the past week shed new light on specific types of activity you should be doing, and how a couple routine tweaks a day might actually keep the doctor (and the medications) away.
A study published Jan. 13 in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise concluded that “activity snacks” throughout the day can help combat some of the negative health effects of prolonged sitting. Among those who participated in the study, individuals who got up and took five-minute walks every 30 minutes had lower blood sugar and lower blood pressure than those who sat for long, uninterrupted periods of time, NBC News reported. One-minute walks every hour also positively impacted blood pressure, though not blood sugar. “When you’re sitting, the blood pools in the legs,” Keith Diaz, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of behavioral medicine at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, told NBC. “When you regularly activate the muscles in the legs, it helps restore regular blood flow.”
